23. Rule #23 Let him spoil you.
Amelia
Ifeel him watching. And then I feel when he’s not watching. Even without looking up from my sketchbook, I can sense whether his eyes are on me.
My lo-fi station is playing on the Bluetooth speaker as I go back and forth from sketching designs to making to-do lists to writing emails.
Matis is sitting across the room, reclined in an office chair.
His shoes are propped up on the table as he reads a faded paperback with yellowing pages and a wrinkled cover.
It’s an old mystery novel in French he picked up at one of the riverside booksellers.
Outside it’s started to rain, and the pitter-patter on the roof of the building has created a calm sense of ease in the room. The club hasn’t opened yet, but I can hear the rest of the team working down the hall. I hardly noticed three hours fly by as I was working on this project.
Erasing the form lines on the dress I’m working on, I swipe the dust off the page as I look up at Matis.
Whether he knows it or not, his presence grounds me.
When he’s around, I don’t feel like I’m crawling out of my skin or trying to run three different races at once.
I’m not scrambling to catch up or lagging behind.
I wish I knew why.
Thinking about that moment under the tree, I realize that I meant what I said. I need Matis in my life, even if it’s just like this. Even if we keep things as innocent as possible forever.
Granted…that seems incredibly unfair. Curating our lives to fit the comfort of others. So what if my dad wouldn’t like it? If he had worried about what other people thought, he would have never married my mom.
Glancing back down at the drawing in front of me, my mind wanders, latching on to a memory from when I was only six or seven years old. The only time I could ever remember my parents facing judgment. The only time I saw my mother truly angry.
I don’t even remember who the woman was or why she was directing such harsh vitriol at my father. I only remember the things she called him. The cruelness in her tone.
And I can still hear the way she asked him, “What is wrong with you?”
For my little mind, I always wondered what she meant. There was nothing wrong with my dad. There was nothing wrong with my family.
Who was this stranger to imply that there was?
She was no one. Not really. A stranger we never saw again. A memory from my childhood we never revisited. Other than my mother briefly apologizing afterward for losing her temper and using some very bad words toward that woman.
But then that was it. The four of us went back to our daily lives where we loved each other, doing nothing wrong.
I glance back up at Matis.
Would people direct those insults toward him? Either because he’s old enough to be my father or because he held me as a baby.
Doesn’t it matter what I think? What I know. That he has never been the slightest bit inappropriate with me in all my life. That he never once used his age, authority, or power over me in any way. That he would kill and probably die for me if he had to.
And yet still they would ask, What is wrong with you?
Without knowing his heart the way I do. Without knowing his soul.
“Is it coming along?” he asks when he notices me lost in thought instead of hard at work.
I drop my pencil and glance up at him with a sheepish smile. “I think I’m getting hungry.”
With a smirk, he sets his paperback down on the table and looks at his watch. “It’s getting late. I should get you home. I’m sure your parents are about to have dinner.”
My stomach tightens at the mention of them, suddenly picturing that big, dark, empty house.
“They’re out of town,” I mutter to myself.
“Oh. Where will you sleep?” he asks, his brow furrowed.
“At…home,” I say with a hint of confusion.
I can see his jaw clench from here. “Not by yourself.”
Chuckling at him, I tilt my head. “I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine.”
He stands up with a huff. “Yes, but you don’t like being home alone. Let’s go.”
My spine straightens as I watch him cross the room. “Go where?”
“I’ll make you dinner, and then I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
Warmth floods my chest before it starts to pool low in my belly. He’s staying over? That seems like a risky choice with our behavior lately.
But with a grin, I jump out of my seat. He certainly won’t find me arguing.
A Bolognese sauce simmers on the stove, and some old French singer plays on the speakers.
Matis quietly sings along as he stirs the sauce and takes a sip of his wine.
Sitting at the dining room table, I can’t help but admire him like this.
He is such a bighearted person, and he takes care of me because he wants to.
How could he stay single for so long when he was clearly made for a relationship?
The screen of my phone lights up on the table in front of me. When I see my brother’s name, I swipe open the text.
Julian: Mom and Dad are in London again?
I type out my response.
Amelia: Yeah, they left this morning.
Julian: You want to come stay here?
I get a feeling of both resentment and gratitude that my brother seems to also know that I don’t like being home alone. I appreciate that my family knows me so well, but at the same time, I don’t need everyone in my life treating me like a child.
Amelia: I’m fine.
Julian: You sure? Arch and I can sleep in the guest room and give you and Freya our bed.
Amelia: You’re ruining your image as an asshole when you’re this nice to me.
Julian: Only for you. Don’t tell anyone.
I chuckle to myself.
Amelia: I appreciate it, but really, I’m okay.
Julian: Suit yourself. I’m not far if you need me.
Amelia: Thanks.
“I hope you’re hungry.”
I glance up from my phone to see Matis grating parmesan over the bowl of pasta. A moment later, he sets it in front of me, and I smile up at him.
“You’re spoiling me.”
When I feel his lips against the top of my head, my heart swells. “I like spoiling you.”
Spoil me more then, I think. Spoil me until I come.
Of course, I don’t say that out loud.
When he sits across from me with his own bowl, it doesn’t feel strange or forbidden or unnatural. In fact, it feels like the most normal thing in the world. We belong like this. Can’t he feel it?
When I lift my gaze to his, we both savor the moment. Soft smiles stretch across content faces.
“I meant what I said today,” I mumble quietly as I spin the noodles around my fork.
“Said what?”
“That I think you should go back to work at the club.”
He nods for a moment without looking up at me. “Am I really bothering you that much?”
“No. I wish you’d bother me more, actually.”
He smirks up at me but doesn’t respond.
“I just mean…I don’t think you were ready to retire yet.”
Judging by the way his shoulders tense and his mouth straightens, I’d say I’m right.
“What do you suggest I do, Trouble? Take L’Amour back?”
With my mouth full, I smirk at him. “It’s called Legacy now.”
“Exactly. It’s not my club anymore.”
“So start a new one,” I suggest as I take a sip of my wine.
He scoffs. “Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“Do you know how much work that is?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Too much for an old man like me.”
“You’re not so old…” I mutter while staring down at my bowl. I feel his eyes lift to my face, but I don’t show the smile I’m hiding.
After dinner, Matis and I curl up on the couch in the living room and watch an old movie. I have a bowl of popcorn on my lap, eating it one piece at a time to keep busy throughout the movie or else I can’t possibly sit still that long.
His hand rests along the back of the sofa, except for a moment near the end when I feel his fingers tracing delicately down my spine. My skin erupts in shivers, and I end up ditching the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table to lean back into his arm.
This is still innocent enough. We would have done this before, wouldn’t we?
I have to stick by what I said earlier. That I would respect his wishes and keep him as a friend and a godfather instead of pressuring him into something I know we both want. We can maintain these boundaries if we must. Although it’s difficult.
But I’m making a promise to myself to not force something that could inevitably break us. I have gone this long with Matis at arm’s length. Surely, I can maintain it.
During a quiet moment in the movie, I turn my head and stare at his profile illuminated in the glow from the TV screen. The pounding of my heartbeat’s a little bit louder. Matis’s face, his voice, his features…they are home to me.
He rotates his chin toward me, and our eyes meet.
Neither of us move, letting the film play in the periphery as we gaze into each other’s eyes.
Maybe we’re both thinking the same thing.
That something has happened in the last couple of days.
Maybe it was the night in Trocadero. Maybe it was the night he caught me watching.
But the landscape of our relationship has morphed somehow.
I want nothing more than to press my lips to his and kiss those soft lips. To feel the rough texture of his five-o’clock shadow on my face. To swim in the warm embrace of his arms.
But of course, he doesn’t do those things. Instead, he closes his eyes and presses his lips to my forehead. I wrap my arm around his chest and burrow myself into his arms.
The rest of the movie plays, but I barely give it my attention. I’m too focused on this quiet calm with him, the way it feels to be so locked up with him on this couch. To skirt this line, acknowledging its existence and how much we want to cross it while staying firmly on one side.
I turn on my mattress, first staring at the door and then staring at the window. The prospect of sleep tonight is as unrealistic as the dreams I’d be having if the man I love and can’t have wasn’t sleeping on the other side of the house.
After the movie ended, we peeled ourselves apart begrudgingly. I could feel the hesitancy radiating off his skin. Even he wanted to follow me to this bed.
And it’s not about sex, not really. I’d be happy if he was just lying here with me, letting me sleep in complete and utter peace and contentment. But he’s not. Instead, he’s in the guest room, which is two floors down and feels nearly as far as his apartment across town.
The thought, or should I say the temptation, to climb out of bed to eat up the distance between us is so powerful, I am nowhere near sleep. I could just go tell him I need his company. We could keep it strictly platonic.
More than once, I throw back the covers, ready to march down there to be with him.
Each time, I picture his face today on the street. The way he said, I can’t.
Then, sometime after midnight, I hear the floorboards on the stairs creak. My eyes pop open as I watch the door, waiting for him to walk in or knock.
But after too long, the creaking sound grows fainter, and I know he’s returned to his room.
Finally, something in me snaps. This is ridiculous. Why are we torturing ourselves? He clearly wants me. I obviously want him. We are both adults. No one else is around.
I’m not a fucking nun. I’m not taking a vow of celibacy. There’s no reason to deprive ourselves of what we so desperately crave.
In a huff, I throw back the covers and storm to my door. Throwing it open, I gasp.
Standing in the frame is Matis, and he looks just as tired of this fight as I am.